“Madame la Duchesse will not be going to her corsetier’s?”
“It depends if there’s time. What did I do with my shopping-list?” the Duchess replied, gathering up abstractedly a large, becoroneted vanity-case and a parasol. She had a gown of khaki and daffodil and a black tricorne hat trimmed with green. “Give me my other sunshade, the jade—and don’t forget—: On me trouvera, Soit au Palais Royal, soit, au Palais de Glace!” she enjoined sailing quickly out.
Leaving the Ritz by a side door, she found herself in a quiet, shady street, bordering the Regina Gardens. Above a sky so blue, so clear, so luminous seemed to cry out: “Nothing matters! Why worry? Be sanguine! Amuse yourself! Nothing matters!”
Traversing the gardens, her mind preoccupied by Madame Wetme’s note, the Duchess branched off into a busy thoroughfare, leading towards the Opera, in whose vicinity lay the city’s principal shops. To learn of anything to one’s advantage was, of course, always welcome, but there were various other claims upon her besides that afternoon, which she was unable, or loath to ignore—the palace, a thé dansant or two, and then her favourite rink ... although the unfortunate part was, most of the rink instructors were still unpaid, and, on the last occasion she had hired a man to waltz with her, he had taken advantage of the fact by pressing her waist with greater freedom than she felt he need have done.
Turning into the Opera Square with its fine arcades, she paused, half furtively, before a Florist’s shop. Only her solicitors and a few in the secret were aware that the premises known as Haboubet of Egypt were her own; for fearful lest they might be occupied one day by sheriffs’ officers, the little business venture had been kept the closest mystery. Lilies “from Karnak,” Roses “from the Land of Punt” (all grown in the gardens of her country house, in the purlieus of the capital) found immediate and daily favour among amateurs of the choice. Indeed as her gardener frequently said, the demand for Roses from the Land of Punt, was more than he could possibly cope with without an extra man.
“I may as well run in and take whatever there’s in the till,” she reflected—“not that, I fear, there’s much....”
The superintendent, a slim Tunisian boy, was crouching pitcher-posture upon the floor, chanting languidly to himself, his head supported by an osier pannier lately arrived from “Punt.”
“Up, Bachir!” the Duchess upbraided. “Remember the fresh consignments perish, while you dream there and sing.”
The young Tunisian smiled.
He worshipped the Duchess, and the song he was improvising as she entered, had been inspired by her. In it (had she known) he had led her by devious tender stages to his Father’s fondouk at Tifilalet “on the blue Lake of Fetzara,” where he was about to present her to the Cheikh, and the whole assembled village, as his chosen bride.